Paradise Lost
by onelildustbunni
Summary: Sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone. Julian finds that trading the apocalypse for his version of heaven is actually less appealing than it seems. Apocalyptic dystopian Helix (Hellion and X-23) AU.
1. Chapter 1

**PARADISE LOST**

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**Chapter 1  
**

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"_**IN HERE!" **_X shouts at me, the cords in her neck straining. I can't tell if she's afraid or not, because the air is soaking with fear and adrenaline, so potent that I can't tell what organ I'm using to detect it anymore. Our footsteps sound scratchy against the cracked pavement and echo among the empty buildings. Scratch-clap, scratch-clap, scratch-clap, _**BOOM! **_in the distance.

"No!" I snap at my companion, who looks over her shoulder—and slows down, her eyes wide with terror, slack-jawed and speechless. She makes a tiny whimper. I yank her wrist more roughly than I mean to. Hard to control my metal grip when I'm terrified and my hands are directly controlled by my thoughts and emotional state. I've been guiding her like a lost child for the last half an hour of mindless terror and exploding brick and flying fragments and flashes of light from shock waves…so it's safe to say I'm a little upset. We follow X, who is tearing at the ground with her shining claws. I don't understand at first, then I see there's a manhole cover, melted into the charred pavement.

I shove her out of the way and use my mind to rip the cover off like it wasn't even there. No time to be delicate because the grim reaper is breathing over my shoulder. Then I take my companion by the waist and lift her down into the darkness, her making loud noises of terror because she hates small spaces after what they did to her in Camp Two. "Shut _**UP!" **_I yell, then look over my shoulder. "Where the hell are the others?"

"There's no time, you should get in—" X begins.

"They're our friends! We don't leave them behind—_**FIND THEM, **_you fucking robot!_**" **_I shout at her, in anger now. She closes her eyes, and then turns her head in the direction we have come from—toward the smoky area. Then she starts to go. I regret yelling at her, and I catch her wrist. "X, I'm sorry, I—"

"Contact them telepathically and I will assist them," she says stiffly.

I feel stupid at having momentarily forgotten. I close my eyes and start to dig into the space around me, with my mind, searching for signs of life. I can sense X beside me—or rather, the absence of X because I can't see into her like the others, she's like a silhouette—then there's our hunters, their minds on fire with the thrill of the chase as they program their remote-control killing machines—and, far off in the distance, I can hear Cessily, kind of muted. She's panicking about Santo. I open my eyes. "East," I say, making a move to go. X pulls me back, with her wrist, which I am still holding.

"I will go," she says. "Alone."

"I'll help you," I insist, still feeling like ass about calling her a robot. While I don't know much about X—even after all this time in her company—I know she hates that like nothing else. I made the mistake of saying that to her once before, and I thought she would kill me.

She shakes her head. "It was my fault—I allowed them to fall behind. Please, get into the sewer."

I think about it for a moment. Then I pull us into the air, flying in the direction of our friends. X gives me an impatient look. She's also always hated the fact that I can overrule her decisions like they didn't even happen, but she never says anything, not once in the fifteen years that we've been leaning on each other for survival. I would probably give her a shit-eating grin, but I'm not in the mood for joking around right now. My head's buzzing like it's full of bees, and I've almost pissed myself three times in the last half-hour. And before all this—before we stumbled on the booby-trap mess of Nimrod MKII Sentinels—I was already having a bad day.

I thought it was going to be halfway decent. I'd opened my eyes this morning and looked at the murky orange-grey sky and wanted to kill myself as per usual, but then Sofia had woken up and smiled at me in the way she used to before the world just upped and quit on us. This was so cheering that I didn't smoke this morning. Which I now hardily regret. She kissed me, also like she used to, and I thought that the two year drought was over, the drought that began when we lost our sixth member—Nori—and I started to slip my fingers under her shirt, but then she pushed me away and said that she couldn't.

I don't know if it's really Nori's death that upset Sofia so much. She's never been okay with my metal hands, not since I got them—a joint effort between X and Cessily—not since I lost my real ones at Camp Three. I try to stay out of her head, but it's hard to not pick up on the fact that my hands repulse and terrify her. And she's already terrified enough.

"There!" X says, pointing. I follow her finger and then angle us downward, toward Cessily, who is in an alleyway and facing a Stalker Nimrod by herself. By herself. Her mind is blank and shut-down. We swoop overhead and I grab her by her reaching hand, although I don't think it was reaching for me. "Where's Santo?!" I shout over the wind, because I can't mind-search too well while I'm concentrating on our navigation and shielding. We'll get a pretty big tail any moment now, and I have no clue if my blocks are strong enough for Nimrod MKII's. They can just barely handle MKI's as is.

"I—I saw—he was blown up!" she says, forcing herself to speak, to communicate. I now feel an edge of panic. Santo can come back from being blown up…but not atomized. If the Sentinel wasn't using its power save feature…

"We don't have time," X says to me. I grit my teeth, but I know she's right. If Santo's rubble right now, we have little chance of recovering him without getting ourselves killed. Better to hide and let things simmer down a bit, then recover him. He won't be in danger—not like us—and maybe I can contact him mentally. I do a 360 and start to head back for the sewer where Sofia waits, probably bat-shit insane by now. _Good, maybe she'll identify with me more, _I think blandly.

I'm not really insane, but my mind wanders a lot into dark corners. I think it started somewhere between the massacre and the executions, kind of just after the massive skull crack. Or was it after I discovered I could hear my friend's thoughts as they died? I liked it back when I was just lifting stuff with my brain instead of feeling it, too. Maybe I started overthinking things because it seems to help keep myself in my own head. And secretly, I feel that analyzing every detail of my life will help me master it and maybe keep it.

_Focus, _I order myself, my nose twitching. I realize I'm getting pretty tired of flying. X isn't that heavy, but I'm also carrying myself and Cessily, the latter weighing about three hundred pounds (but I would never tell her that). By the time we reach the street the sewer entrance is on, my arms are shaking. I hear a loud _rrrrumble _behind us, indicating we've picked up a tail.

"Drop me," X says.

I close my eyes, shake my head and concentrate on my target. The pavement is rushing up to meet us, but so is the rumble. The MKII's can fly nearly as fast as I can, but I am also weighed down right now so it has a definite advantage. It also has the advantage of being able to radiate shockwaves while in flight—another thing I can't do.

The sewer entrance is suddenly right in front of us. We zip into it like rabbits falling down a hole, and the Nimrod flies straight. As we tumble into the aged slime, I wrack my aching brain for a way to conceal the entrance—and our body heat.

"Stay in the water!" X commands us, on the same thought that I am. "It will lower our thermal signatures. The Nimrod will think we are dead."

"Mmm…" comes a whimper from the darkness. Sofia.

"How can we cover the entrance?" I ask X, who is my right-hand man for tactics. Like I said before, we lean on each other for survival, and I mean quite literally. If either of us two bought the farm I'm quite certain the others wouldn't last a day.

X looks up at the small hole of light, her long hair dripping sewage, her skin stained with dirt and burn marks from our earlier combat. She took a low-level shockwave for me and Sofia, which makes me feel even worse about calling her a robot. "The pavement," she decides. "Stretch it over the gap."

I reach up and follow her directions, manipulating it on the molecular level. It's thin, but it works—the circle of light blacks out, and I hear Sofia shriek in the corner.

"Shhh," Cessily says. "Sofia….here, get in beside me. It'll be okay."

I feel mildly assholish in not even trying to comfort my frantic girlfriend, but at the moment I've got bigger concerns. Such as being prepared for a Nimrod to burst through the cement cover I've made and boil us alive in the sewage. That would kinda be a fitting end to my shitty life. I watch the dark entrance, my eyes narrowed, my hand outstretched and glowing lightly—as does X. Her claws are still out and ready for action, and I feel reassured, even though that's ridiculous. She can't do anything to defend us against a full blast from an MKI, let alone an MKII.

A few moments pass, then there is a _snakkt! _sound. "It's gone," X says. "We need to move further into the tunnels."

"Before it backtracks," I add, knowing that it _will_ be back at some point. It might even figure out the sewer entrance. Nimrods are smarter than your average Trask period Sentinel. While the big old clunkers were designed to deal with chance encounters, Nimrods exist for the sole purpose of sniffing out high-threat mutant targets and exterminating them. I replace 'high threat' with 'the last' when thinking about our situation.

We wade down the tunnel for a while, until X says that it is probably far enough. There are now elevated platforms on either side of the sewage trough, to which we wade. We then drag ourselves out, shaking with exhaustion and the pain we're all starting to acknowledge, now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off. I sit on the concrete for a moment, close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to stem the almost blinding headache I'm developing. The pain is so loud that I can't even hear the thoughts of the people around me. It's like I've stepped back in time. I think, for a few seconds, about what I would be like now if I didn't read minds, if I couldn't see what was going on behind the scenes. Probably dead.

I hear Cessily on the other side murmuring to Sofia and probably rubbing her shoulder. The latter whispers something back that I can't hear. I should go to her, but I detect movement beside me. Turning my hand into a flashlight, I see that it's X, kneeling on all fours, her forearms shaking and her teeth gritted. I think about what she's been through today, the hits she took for us, the fact that she's been eating and sleeping a hell of a lot less than anyone else...and what I said to her earlier.

"You okay?" I ask.

She turns to look at me. Her eyes flash lightly in the darkness, the reflective receptors at the backs of her eyes catching the dim light of my hand—very catlike. "Fine," she says, forcing herself to sit up. "We need to move," she says again.

"Yeah, yeah." I look around us. We're at the entrance of a big chamber that seems to be filled with sewage, dark shapes and doorways, probably a central junction of some sort. This is promising—there's probably a maintenance room somewhere, in which we can sit and maybe rest in shifts without fear of rolling into the sewage and drowning. "Go exploring?" I ask her.

She nods. I look over at Cessily and Sofia. "You stay here," I order. "We'll see if there's a safe spot somewhere. Call me if there's trouble."

"Okay," Cessily says. Sofia looks at me with wide eyes. "But—but—the light," she stammers.

"I'll be back, soon," I say. "Just stay there."

X gets to her feet, and we start to walk along the small concrete walkway, me limping from a sore leg that I hadn't noticed before. Must have been when I got slammed into the brick wall earlier. Luckily nothing broke. Breaks are a real bitch—I've had to deal with them before. I usually set and repair them somewhat with my mind by routing energy through the area—which seems to naturally connect the gaps—and then I try to be really, really careful. I can shift molecules around well enough, but I don't know much about human anatomy and so I'm nervous to really try anything else.

We walk for a few minutes, stopping to glance inside doorways. Most lead to new sections of sewage. A few are walled off. We pass a long row of big cylindrical drums, and then X stops for a moment, smelling the air. Then she points in the direction of the corner opposite to us in the big room. "I smell dry brick….and electricity…over there," she says. Her finger is shaking.

"Good." I pause. "X…I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't mean it."

"Go get the others," she replies. "I will investigate the room."

"No, I want to…clear the air between us, first." I pause, hold my lit fingers a little higher so I can see her face, which is guarded, her eyes narrowed slightly—but that could be because I'm shining a light in her face after she's been in the dark for a while. "It was wrong of me to say that. I might not know that much about you…but enough to know you're not a machine. You've done a lot for us and I don't think you would if you didn't care."

She gazes at me and says nothing.

"Do you accept my apology?" I ask directly.

"Yes," she says, and looks down, her eyebrows drawing together. She opens her mouth. "I…" but then she shakes her head. "Go and get the others."

"What?" I ask, curious.

"Forget it."

"No, what? Tell me," I say. In fifteen years, I've never seen her volunteer more conversation than she deems strictly necessary. It's usually a 'yes' or 'no' answer, unless it's a tactical direction—the only time she's not monosyllabic. I wouldn't ever accuse X of being a chatterbox.

"It is not my place." She looks at me again, her expression more composed. I feel startled as I realize that it had been vulnerable a few moments ago.

"Come on," I say, sniffing. I'm vaguely aware that my nose has begun to trickle blood, probably related to my terrific migraine. Or maybe it's actually my brains leaking out. I've overused my powers so much today that I think my head has turned to a bloody slush inside. Reaching up, I wipe it on the back of my sleeve and stare at her, waiting for an answer.

"No." She turns and begins to head into the darkness. I hesitate, then shrug and head back to the others. When I reach them, Sofia tackle-hugs me and clings on, trembling and almost speechless with fear. We move slowly in the direction I had come from, and finally—ten or twenty minutes later—we reach the room that X had indicated. She is inside it, sitting on a cement ledge and unlacing her knee-high boots.

"This is great," I say, holding my glowing hand up high and looking around the space. There's several dry ledges, a map on the wall, and what looks like a few electrical generators to one side. No food unfortunately…but then who would want to eat anything they find in a sewer?

"It will suffice," X replies, examining her boots—which are probably soaked. I set Sofia down on a ledge. "Can you let go of my neck?" I ask her, wincing. My head's going to pop off at any second now.

"S-sorry," she mumbles.

"It's okay," I say, like I always do.

**…**

We're sitting on either side of the stone doorway, X and I, while Sofia and Cessily sleep on the ledges. Normally we take opposite pair-turns doing the shifts—X and Cessily, me and Sofia, but right now the other two are too exhausted to be remotely competent. Besides, I want to try and coax X's earlier comment out, maybe get to know her a little better since I've been reminded that I know next to nothing about someone I depend on for survival. Or maybe just distract myself from the fact that—yet again—I don't know if my best friend is alive or dead.

"So, what do you think of all this?" I ask her in a half-whisper, leaning my head back against the brick wall.

X looks at me, her eyebrows arched. "Of what?" she asks.

I grin. "Of our new home among the shit and the rats."

She thinks. "It is the safest place at the moment."

"Right." I return her look. "Too bad we'll starve down here."

"I do not think so. There is vermin and—"

"Stop," I say, gagging. "Just—god, _X_—stop." It's been bad a few times—and once or twice we've lived on small wildlife—but I refuse to sink to the level of eating sewer rats to survive. I just _won't, _I won't. I wonder subconsciously if it's because I identify with them too much.

She turns her head and falls instantaneously silent. I think she might be offended. I close my eyes, irritated. Why can't I manage to have a normal conversation with her? Me, who's never had social problems before? If I like someone, I'm almost always able to get on their good side. I used to play that to my advantage, back when I was a kid and concerned with being the best at everything. I clear my throat.

"So…Laura...where'd you grow up?" I ask her. I know her name from when Wolverine introduced her—a very, _very_ long time ago—but I haven't used it much, and since the Camps I've pretty much just called her X, since that's what Santo calls her.

X looks at me again. "The facility," she says, as if this is self-explanatory.

"Oh, right," I say. My head throbs, and the mushy contents whirl for a few moments. I feel dizzy and nauseous. _Think, _I order myself. Something that will actually get her talking. "I remember that now. You must've had a rough childhood."

She says nothing. I assume that means I'm an idiot. "Do you wanna tell me about it?" I offer.

"No," she says.

I sigh. "Okay, how about…what kind of things do you like?"

X thinks about this for a few moments. "Food," she says. "And water."

_Give me a break, _I groan inwardly."Oh yeah?" I ask, trying to sound like this is genuinely illuminating and I'm fascinated by her. "What kind of food?"

"As long as it is edible I do not care," she says, a little stiffly. "That is why I suggested—"

"Yeah, yeah." I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid they're about to shoot out of my skull like projectiles. Or maybe they'll pop first, like two bloody balloons. Would there be a spray? Would it be a relief? Maybe I should pick this conversation up at another point in time. _We might be dead then, and I'll regret it, _I think, and look at her again. "I want to talk to you, but I have no idea how," I say bluntly.

She returns my look warily. "We are talking," she says, probably wondering if I've suffered head trauma. She's not too far off, but I don't think I have a concussion. Or much of one, at least. Maybe just a little. Fuck if I know anymore. I couldn't be in more pain if someone started beating on the back of my skull with a crowbar.

"No, I mean…_talk _talk." I shift my legs. Those are sore too. It's nice, kind of, to be balanced in pain, to have both ends hurting. Counterpain. If my legs hurt worse, they might cancel each other out and I could just relax. I would gleefully slit my own mother's throat for a bottle of ibuprofen or whiskey and a mattress right now. Or all three "I know nothing about you…which is crazy. How long have we been friends now?"

"Fifteen years, three months, fifteen and a half days," she replies, almost immediately.

I blink. "You've kept track?" I can never figure out how she counts these things. You could stick her with a cure dart, blindfold and bind her up and lock her away in a car trunk…and she could still tell you what time it is in Cairo and Beijing.

X turns her head to look straight. "Yes," she says. It sounds like an admission. I think for a moment, about back when we met. I have a picture in my head: a kind of shy-looking girl, with big green eyes and messy black hair. And a definite Goth edge. She seemed mysterious but I was in too shitty a period of my life to care about hers.

I tilt my head, and try to jog my memories. It's hard—it's all mucked up with the mansion being attacked over and over, and Xavier dying, and Utopia, and the Phoenix, and the Camps, and my hands, and living like a rat—but I vaguely recall that X used to follow me around like a puppy for a couple of years after we were briefly introduced. I hadn't really paid much attention to her, since she was ten levels of weird and Sofia started turning to me for support as her friends died and scattered. X stopped doing it after a while, and so I forgot. The apocalypse took precedence.

"Why did you used to follow me around?" I ask. I'm pretty sure I _know_ the reason, but maybe it'll get her into a conversation. We can both laugh about how stupid we used to be, me the little jock punk who couldn't imagine life beyond high school (except for being a super hero), and her the Emo freak who I couldn't fit into any of my preconceived people-boxes. I don't keep those anymore, since I'm probably more fucked up inside than she is now.

"I don't want to talk about this," she says promptly—and I see that she looks vulnerable again, for the second time this night.

"That was _ages_ ago," I say, giving her an encouraging and what I hope is a friendly smile. "You had a crush on me, didn't you?"

X's eyes bulge slightly, and then she closes them and holds her shoulders very square and her nostrils flaring. I have quite obviously hit the mark. I feel like laughing, for the first time in a few months—since Santo got stuck in a doorway on a food grab and ended up wearing the frame for a while. I don't, though. I think she's embarrassed that I called her out on it. "Don't worry…I mooned after Jean Grey and Ms. Frost when _I _first got to the school," I say, thinking that maybe if I relate with her, she'll be more at ease. Once upon a time I probably would have done the exact opposite—lorded it over her and used the information to my advantage—but that time is over. It ended with my childhood. "I was even convinced at one point that I would get Grey to leave her husband for me."

X says nothing. And she does not relax. At all.

I sigh. "Laura—come on. I'm not mad at you…or weirded out…I swear. I was only trying to get to know you better, to—"

"To confirm that I am not a robot?" she asks, unable to keep the anger out of her voice.

I look at her, and see the fire in her eyes. Even in the dim light that my hand is providing. "I thought I was forgiven," I say patiently, even though I'm not surprised. Women don't just forgive and forget, as I have had the opportunity to learn firsthand from Sofia, the champion grudge-holder.

X says nothing, just watches me.

"I believe you," I say. "I know you care about us. You've proven yourself over and over. You're _one_ of us…I just said something stupid, in the moment. Like I often say to Santo when he gets annoying, you know?" I wince, at having reminded myself of Santo again. I need to stay calm, carry on and let my head rest so I can find him and put him back together. _All the King's horses and all the King's men, _I hear in my head. Some old Nursery Rhyme.

"I am not one of you," X says, watching me warily.

"Yes you are." I frown at her, disturbed. I didn't know she felt excluded. "Of course you are."

She says nothing. I lean my head against the wall again. "I know you care," I repeat tiredly, almost to myself. My voice sounds wheezy and rough, kind of like a death rattle. Swallowing all that blood earlier made me thirsty, and I wish I had a drink of water. "You find us food…you stand watch…and I count every time you take a shot for us—"

"For _you,_" X says, intensely. I look at her and see that she is still watching me—also intensely. My eyebrows raise slightly as I try to figure out what she means, but she is moving across the gap between us. She kneels in front of me, her hands splayed on the knees of my worn-out jeans as she looks me directly in my eyes. "For you," she repeats, a little more softly.

I realize that maybe I know even less about her than I've thought. Even as pained and exhausted as I am right now, her meaning is coming through pretty clear. That crush I was teasing her about earlier isn't dead. I swallow, and shift slightly, not really knowing what to do. Her touch tingles gently even through the fabric, but my conscience is also keenly aware of Sofia sleeping just a few feet away.

"I…" my eyebrows draw together. She looks down at my knees, and I realize that maybe she didn't mean to approach me, to proposition me. Maybe she couldn't help herself. I feel bad for a moment at automatically assuming she would ask me to do something wrong, and I reach out and cup her downturned chin in my lightly glowing fingers. "Thank you," I say, hoping that won't hurt her. I don't think it does, but she leans her cheek my hand slightly, her eyes sliding shut—like she has imagined this for a long time, and wanted it—and at that moment I am inexplicably reminded of the way Sofia crunches down her disgust when I touch her. My fingers remind _her_ of dead, cold, pathetic things she's seen rotting on the sides of the road.

I don't know what X thinks, but from the slight upward tilt of her lips suggests it's not that. She looks up at me again—and I _know _it's not that. She's thinking about something more alive. I hesitate for a split second—almost stopping myself—but then again I've never been the kind of guy to not take what I want, and I've just decided, just like that, that I want _her. _I don't know if it's out of spite toward Sofia, or out of actual desire for X, or out of the fact that I very nearly almost died a few times earlier today. I pull her up against me and tilt my head as I kiss her, getting more enthusiastic as I go along. It's not like I haven't noticed that she has a great body.

I suppose—in the back of my head—I assumed that it was that it was going to suck somehow, and I wouldn't do it again. X is so mechanical about everything else she does. Or else that it would be a one-time thing, that we'd mutually agree it couldn't happen because of the group, because we need each other to survive and what we're doing now threatens that survival. We don't have room for drama and hurt feelings. But what I didn't expect was it to feel great, and what I really didn't expect was for her to suddenly drop every guard in her mind, and I mean _everything. _Like she's naked.

I'm suddenly inside the abyss that I had wondered about before, and it's filled with a blur of vibrant memories, deep connections and incredibly potent sensations. There's moving pictures (the most detailed memories I've ever seen), there's gentle glows that represent feelings (what the fuck, I've never seen that), there's tendril-like connections everywhere (she really thinks of Santo as a brother? And Cessily as a sister? She would die for any of us at any minute), but I'm too overwhelmed by what she's directing at me to look at any of this. I can't come close to describing it but I'll try. It's this kind of throbbing need that fills her head-to-toe. It's this deep loyalty and devotion that makes me feel like I'm some kind of religious experience for her. It's this strict sense that she has no right to ask anything of me because I have not chosen her. It's the bitter victory of my survival, and the burning of a deep sacrifice in what she's done to achieve it. It's the intense knowledge that she would do anything I ask, even destroy herself if it would please me.

I grab her by the shoulders and push her away, startled, my heart pounding rapidly, my eyes wide. "What the _fuck?_" I hiss at her, when I can finally form words again, when I've finally realized I'm back in my own head.

Laura—I don't think I'll ever call her X again—gives me an uncertain look. "You…you started it," she says uncertainly. I realize she is referring to the kiss.

"No, the—" I struggle for words. "You _love_ me," I finally accuse her. I think this is the word for it, but it sounds like a severe understatement.

Her eyes widen. "I—I am sorry," she says. "I forgot…I forgot to block…"

"What?" I ask, my voice still sharper than I intend.

"Your telepathy…I did not think…" she lowers her head. "I am sorry. It will not happen again."

"You _block _me out?" I ask, a little less angrily. I didn't realize it was something she is consciously doing—I thought she had a natural resistance to telepathy. She nods. "I did not want you to…" she pauses. "To have to hear my thoughts. The others are enough."

I lean my head back against the wall, close my eyes. My head is throbbing again like a motherfucker, and if I thought I was dying before, I'm really dying now. I consider crawling over to the sewage and making myself puke, but that'd be a waste when we don't know how long we'll be down here. Laura backs away—to the other side of the doorway—and turns her back to me. I don't say anything. My heart's still beating like I ran a marathon.

I close my eyes and try not to think about being in Laura's head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2  
**

* * *

I open my eyes and it's black, all black, and very close and muffled. My heart starts crawling up my throat, and I swing a wild punch out into the darkness, expecting my fist to connect with solid wood, because I'm pretty sure I'm in a coffin. Then logic starts setting in as I realize my head is throbbing like it's been split open. I wouldn't be in pain if I were dead. Also, I wouldn't be in a coffin. There are no coffins for us, no funerals, nothing except lying on the side of the road and getting eaten by crows and rats and cats and whatever the hell else wants a bite, regardless of its position on the food chain. If you're lucky, you might get a few stray dandy lions tossed on top of you…and if you're really lucky, maybe your friends will have enough time to roll you into the ditch and kick dirt on top.

No coffins.

My heart starts slowing down again. I start to remember things. We're in the sewers, and I'm sitting guard in the electrical room, and Laura is somewhere off to my left. I can hear her breathing now—and the others, a little farther off—and I light the tips of my fingers to look at her for reassurance. Nothing is more comforting than knowing you have company in the dark. It's the unknown that gets me.

Laura is looking at me, frowning slightly. "A nightmare?" she asks, having seen my punch. She can see in the dark to a certain point, in black and white, or so she's told us. She's like a Swiss army knife, really—always something useful up her sleeve. Speaking of sleeves, I'd murder my best friend for a jacket right now, or even a sweater. All I have is a ripped-up t-shirt which has seen much better days.

"N-not really," I mumble, rubbing my arms. I feel weird. Maybe I've got a little bit of concussion going on too. I was knocked around a _lot _yesterday—or earlier today—or whatever. I have no idea what time it is.

She notices this, and crawls across the gap toward me. "We will need to obtain supplies soon," she comments. "Move away from the wall."

I do as instructed, and she sits against me so we are back-to-back across the gap in the doorway. She's warm, she's always just the perfect temperature because her healing factor does what's best for her body. I've often wondered what it must be like to not have to sweat the little stuff. The only thing that can really kill her out here are the Sentinels on full-power.

"Thanks," I say quietly.

"You are welcome," she replies.

We are silent for a long while after this. Probably twenty or thirty minutes. My migraine is easing up a little bit, and I start to think about what happened before I passed out, the whole thing where I saw inside Laura's head. The fact that we were kind of making out seems completely insignificant and unimportant, compared to that. I feel like I reacted kind of badly. It's not like she wants to kill me, and—despite the intensity—it didn't feel like she was obsessed with me in a bad way. It was love, it was similar to what I once felt for Sofia, but it was different at the same time. Stronger, and…I struggle to word it in my head, and finally come up with the term 'unconditional'. I think about this for a few more minutes.

"I'm sorry about earlier," I whisper finally.

Laura moves her head slightly. "Why would you be sorry?" she asks in a low whisper. "The mistake was mine."

"Well…" I shrug. "It wasn't a mistake, Laura. You should have told me…just—just not after a day like that. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I feel her stiffen. "You are not interested in me. And you have a partner." She pauses. "My emotions are of no consequence."

"Don't say that." I shift slightly, realizing something. "You're…you're my best friend, Laura. Of course you mean something to me. You mean a whole lot."

She says nothing.

"I just…I had no idea you felt like that and it's a lot to find out at once," I continue. "It doesn't mean we can't be friends anymore…but—"

"Please do not pity me," Laura says calmly.

"No, no, I…" I reach up and rub my eyes with my metal fingers. "I promise I won't."

"Then you do not need to explain more." She shifts as she brings her knees up to her chest. "Thank you."

I am at a loss for words. I can't believe she doesn't want anything from me. We lapse into silence again, until—at some point a while later—Cessily puts her hand on my shoulder. I am startled, not having noticed her approach.

"I can take your place," she says. "You need to sleep now."

I think for a moment. "No, I kind of passed out for a while," I admit. "But Laura didn't. She needs it more than I do."

"I am—" Laura begins to protest.

"Go sleep," I order.

She does as commanded without further comment.

**…**

"So what do we do next?" I put forth.

All four of us are sitting in a small circle. We've slept, we've cleaned our wounds as well as we can, and now we're trying to decide our next plan of action. We need to get Santo and escape this city of booby-traps that used to be Westchester. Somehow He knew we'd try to return to the school, and He laid a trap in the form of an enormous cache of Nimrod Sentinels.

When I say He, I don't mean god, because god doesn't exist for us. I mean the commander of the humans, the cyborg who calls himself Bastion. I call him a cyborg because somewhere after his attempt on Utopia failed, he regrouped and integrated a couple humans into his system through the T-O virus. Now he's a blend of the original Nimrod, the original Bastion, William Stryker, and Bolivar Trask. I've spent more than a few nights lying awake and trying to think if there's anyone worse he could possibly assimilate, and the answer is _no._

"I don't know, but I want Santo back," Cessily says, her eyes narrowed. "And I want to know how they knew we'd come back here. I mean, logically…it's the _last_ place we'd want to be, considering how many people died here."

"Nimrod can see the future," Laura says. "They are guarding something…something he knows we will use in the future. It must be at the school."

I look at her sharply. What she's just said has made a lot of sense…and has made an enormous impact, on all of us. The idea that we're not just rats scurrying aimlessly about, waiting to be killed…but that we could fight back. If Nimrod's afraid of us doing something, then that means we have the power to do it—and that means that there is hope.

Hope. I haven't had that in a long time. I can hear the buzzing of the other minds in the room, all struggling with the same concept. Sofia is the most eager to jump at the concept, but also the most hesitant, while Cessily has already decided. I chew my lip, look back at her, then at Cessily—and finally at Sofia, who returns my gaze hesitantly.

"You guys want to find out what it is?" I ask.

"Yes," Cessily says instantly. "After we get Santo…yes."

"It could be very dangerous," Sofia says apprehensively.

"Everything about our lives is dangerous," I reply, trying not to sound irritated. She'll follow me if I decide to do it, which I already have decided by even posing the question. I look at Laura, the deciding factor. She nods slightly.

"We could enter the school through the sewers," she says.

"That's brilliant, Laura," Cessily says. "But what about Santo?"

For a moment, we all sit in quiet contemplation.

"I'll get him myself," I say finally. "You guys will wait in here. If I'm quick…I mean, I've rested completely and—"

"No, we go together!" Sofia says urgently, thinking of the terror of last night, when she was alone in the darkness and thought dead people were talking to her. Her mother, her butler…Laurie…Nori…she almost followed Nori…"I do not like us splitting up." I am alarmed by her memory. How close is she to _actually_ going insane?

"Sof—" I begin.

_You guys fightin' about me?_ Santo's voice asks, faintly.

Only I turn, toward the entrance. There's nothing there. "Uh…Santo?" I ask. The others all stare at me, probably wondering if I've snapped, but I'm not paying attention to them anymore. I get to my feet and head toward the archway, then peer out into the sewer and look in both directions. Nothing.

_Here, _Santo says. He sounds faint still, but I'm pretty certain he's somewhere near me. _Can you bust up a couple of bricks or somethin'?_

"Probably not without collapsing the tunnel," I say out loud. I hear footsteps—the others have joined me. "Are you talking to him?" Cessily asks, sounding excited, but it's only a fraction of what's going on in her head. "Is he okay? Is he _here?!"_

"Yeah," I say vaguely, looking around us. "Shut up everyone and help me find some bricks for him."

"The ledges in the room," Laura says. "They will not cause a compromise of the structural integrity of the sewer."

"Perfect," I say. We head back into the room, and I begin to smash up one of the ledges into small pieces. Laura joins me, cutting into the wall more precisely so we will not eat into the room's supports. It takes us about fifteen minutes to accumulate a pile of rubble and pulverize it to the right size, but finally we sit back.

"Do you need my help?" I ask out loud.

_No, I think I got it, _Santo replies. I see a slight movement in the air in front of me—I don't think Laura does, maybe it's a mind thing—and then the brick fragments start to tremble, and skate across the floor, and then they swirl into the air…and Santo appears.

"Aw, man, they're _sewer bricks!" _he says out loud. _Feel like a toilet, _he's thinking. _My mouth _tastes _like it's literally made of shit._

"Best we had on hand, seeing as we're _in_ the sewers," I reply, gazing up at him. "Sorry."

"Better than nothin'," he grumbles. "I had a helluva time finding you guys—" he is interrupted by Cessily slamming into his side and wrapping her metal arms around him multiple times. _**"SANTO!" **_she shouts, overcome. Her thoughts are wordless but very loud: utter relief. I know if he had died she would've given up…and _she_ knows that, too. I think she loves him but doesn't want to admit it.

"Hey, watch my ribs!" he protests.

"You do not have ribs," Laura says.

"Oh, right." Santo strokes Cessily's head fondly, which is resting against his shoulder. "Like I was sayin'…you were out or somethin', Jules, and no one else could hear me…and I kept fadin' in and out…I think that last blast really nailed me somethin' good. I ain't never had so much trouble stickin' around."

"Least you're here," I say, reaching him out and patting him on the shoulder—_tink, tink, tink_ goes my metal hand against his brick surface. "Good to see you. I was worried."

"We _all_ were worried," Sofia says. She is smiling at him. She has become fond of Santo over the years, and has thought of him as the literal rock of the group, always stable and loyal. I agree.

"Never do that again, okay?" Cessily says to him. It's not a question.

"He may have no choice," Laura says quietly. I look over at her, frowning. She doesn't mean to cast shadows on our moment of happiness, but she's too practical to believe it will remain that way. I think of how little happiness she has inside her, and I can't blame her.

"Laura's right," I say, before Cessily can reply with the sharp comment she's about to blurt out, not because she hates Laura—she views her like a sister too—but because she's been through a lot the past few days, and right now she needs to make-believe that things will be okay for a while if she's going to keep going at all. "We're always going to live in fear if we don't do something about it." I look at Santo. "She brought up a really good point earlier. Did you hear it?"

"Kinda," Santo says. "I heard somethin' about a weapon in the school?"

"We don't know what it is," I say. "Maybe Nimrod doesn't either. But he sees the future, and there's _something _there that he's guarding…"

"Which means we have to get it," Santo says, deciding immediately. "You guys plan it out already?"

"Not without you!" Cessily says, outraged.

"I proposed we use the sewer network to access the school," Laura says. "There was an entrance to the sub-basement in the women's washrooms…and the men's, I presume."

"It's probably all booby trapped," I say, which she has probably already thought of. "We'll need to be careful. Everyone buddy up…watch each other's backs…and Sof and I can feel it out ahead with our powers." I pause. "They've got to have a sentry watching the school itself."

"Yes," Laura agrees. "But we cannot anticipate how many until we arrive. I suggest we reconvene nearer to the school's entrance."

"Sounds like a plan." I look at Santo. "You need to rest up first?"

"Nah," he says. "Had enough rest when I was fading in and out. Let's get to it."

**…**

It takes us about three hours of hard going to reach the school. Westchester is only a ten minute drive, but there's five of us walking a narrow path along a sewer that twists and turns—and is occasionally eroded. To add to that, we have to carefully debate the direction we're travelling in. Laura is the best of us at navigating, since her eidetic memory allows her to recall which direction the school was in when she entered the sewer, as well as which direction she was facing—and what turns she has taken since. As I have said before, the one glimpse I got of her mind showed me that it's really complicated in there.

We're on a long straight stretch, and so I start thinking about the Laura-issue again. She asked me not to pity her—that's all she asked—and yet I can't help but feel bad for her. She's basically devoted her life to protecting me, and expects nothing in return. Absolutely nothing. I could treat her like something I stepped in and it wouldn't phase her in the slightest.

I've never met anyone so selfless, and it makes me feel kind of inferior to her, in a way. I can't love like that, or at least I never have. I didn't even know it was _possible. _When I fell for Sofia, I still wanted things of her, expected things. Her returned affection, her loyalty, her respect and that she would treat me well. Even the other relationships I had before her had some level of expectancy attached. I wonder, vaguely, how I ever could have thought of Laura as a robot, as a kind of mechanical animal. Or as a predator, a big hunting cat that lived to kill. How could I have made that big of a leap in judgment? Sure, she doesn't speak about it…but now every time I look at her, I can't help but notice that she seems a little otherworldly.

I happen to be looking at her right now, from behind, because she's walking ahead of me to fend off possible surprise attacks—on her insistence. I'm second in line, holding my hand up high to light our way. My eyes settled on her ass about five minutes ago, and have not moved.

She stops suddenly—holding up her hand—and I almost collide with her, just stopping in time.

"There is something," she says, after a few moments of silence.

"A trap?" I ask, focusing on our situation again.

She shakes her head slightly. "Organic. I think something is _living_ down here. Julian..."

I nod and close my eyes, start reaching out. I can sense the others behind me, and Laura's blocked-off mind…I pause for a moment…then continue, searching ahead. I pause as I reach an area that doesn't seem empty, but doesn't seem human either. I blink and frown.

"There's something there," I say out loud. "I have no clue what it is."

"It smells human," Laura says. She looks at Sofia. "Can you bring its scent closer?"

Sofia hesitates, then nods and reaches out with one hand. I feel the air around us moving with the soft breeze she's created, and I have a memory of her doing figure eights in the sky beside me, laughing, having the time of her life. Dancing, like her name implied—Wind Dancer. I realize that even though she's standing right behind me, she's not that girl anymore. She died, somewhere along the way, and I haven't acknowledged it until now.

"It's…" Laura's eyes widen, and she looks at me for some reason. Her face—she looks horrified, and I feel disturbed at the idea, because I've never seen her make that expression. "It's Josh," she says, to me. "Josh Foley."

"Oh god," Cessily says.

"Josh?" Sofia asks, her voice sharper than I've heard in a while. "Josh is here?"

"I don't think he's going to be okay, Sof," I say carefully, as delicately as I can, as I know how anymore. "I can't even read his mind."

"We never even tried to find him," Cessily says, sounding hollow. I glance at her, and then helplessly at Santo. _Take care of her, _I tell him mentally.

"It's not your fault, Cess," he says out loud, putting his big brick-hand on her shoulder. "You had no idea…and you had—"

"It doesn't _matter_ what I had!" she says. "We should've looked for him! We—"

"Stop it, Cessily," Laura says firmly. "You will remain here. I will go and meet him."

I wonder if she really means _put him out of his misery. _"I'll come," I say—not because I disagree, but because she shouldn't have to do it alone. "You three stay here and make sure we're not being followed."

"Julian…" Sofia reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Please…be easy on him. He needs our help now…now that we know."

I nod, lean over and kiss her forehead as a promise that I'll try, but I don't speak. Then Laura and I begin to walk along the pathway. Neither of us is looking forward to seeing what's become of our old friend, down here, if both of us had trouble telling he was human.

We have walked for about a minute, when Laura stops. She doesn't turn. "If we have to kill him…"

"I know," I say. "That's why I came."

She looks at me now, over her shoulder. "Will Sofia be angry at you?" she asks, her eyebrows drawn together.

I nod.

"Perhaps you should turn back then," she says.

"No." I shake my head. "I've failed Josh enough as is…whatever's happened, I don't want to leave him suffering. I owe him that much for the times he healed me."

She watches me for a few moments longer, then nods, and I find myself thinking she looks beautiful, even in the dim green glow of my metal hand in the rotting sewers. It's the craziest contrast I can imagine down here, where everything is green and slimy and eroded. I shrug slightly, and we continue on our way. After about three minutes we reach a junction in the sewers, and she holds up her hand to indicate that we are now very near. When we last saw Josh, he could kill people with a touch. That was when he was still human. Who knows what he can do now. We need to be careful.

We start to move again, very quietly.


End file.
